Mercy Corps: Climate Resilience in Development Programs

Mercy Corps' series examines key lessons from integrating climate resilience into development programs, using a Climate Resilient Development (CRD) approach that embeds adaptation into poverty reduction via food security, social cohesion, and inclusive governance. The Pastoralist Areas Resilience Improvement through Market Expansion (PRIME) project, a five-year multi-agency effort, supports pastoralists by expanding markets and promoting long-term behavior change while building resilience to climate impacts. As one of the first large-scale multi-sector programs, it reveals successes and challenges in adaptation integration. Another case, Indonesia's Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), a US$59 million Rockefeller Foundation initiative, strengthens over 50 cities in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam against shocks via capacity building. These studies detail strategies like market expansion for pastoralists, multi-sector resilience integration, and urban governance enhancements, providing best practices for scaling CRD in diverse contexts with measured outcomes on poverty, shocks, and long-term viability.